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cousin_it comments on Church vs. Taskforce - Less Wrong
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Comments (84)
Surely you mean "a lone altruist". A lone rationalist can be very successful. Sorry about the nitpick, but Eliezer has recently been trying to conflate the two words for whatever aims.
Well, I meant that being a lone rationist doesn't spread rationalism, essentially. If that's the motive, you need to be more accepting of those that aren't in order to move them towards the path.
You've nailed exactly what worries me in your comment and the original post. You see, belief systems that aim for self-propagation are prone to turn really icky over time. A scientist doesn't want above all else to spread the scientific worldview, a painter doesn't set out to make everyone else paint, even a pickup artist has no desire to make all males alphas - they all have other, concrete goals; but religious or political views have to be viral. There's any number of movements whose adherents have a priority of spreading the word, and right now I can't think of a single such movement I'd want to be associated with.
Innit. Personally I think I get more out of a community with a wide range of views anyway.
Like violence, there are understandable reasons to be squeamish about evangelism, but if you forswear it, you hand victory to those who do not.
Rather than not talk about it, we should analyse the bad consequences we fear from evangelism, and try to figure out how to get the good things while avoiding the bad things. This may not have been done before, but it would be a mistake to be so stuck on the outside view that you come to believe that only what has already been done is possible.
My examples indicate it's not necessary to hand victory to others. Science didn't spread due to evangelism, science spread because it works. Art spreads because people love it. This is the standard we should be holding ourselves to.
Evangelism is the equivalent of proactive sales with an inferior product. A good evangelist/salesman can push through negative-sum deals, actually destroying total value in the world. If you've spent time in the IT industry, you recognize this picture.
Eliezer said repeatedly that rationalists should WIN. Great, now won't anyone take this phrase seriously? I don't want a rationalist technique to make myself pure from racism or somesuch crap. I want a rationalist technique to WIN. Fo' real. Develop it, and the world will beat a path to your door.
Right now you (we) have no product, and preaching is no substitute.
I have to say that I'm really enjoying lesswrong.com so far; so much of this is the sort of conversation I want to be having. I'm not convinced, I'm thinking about it, but you should make a top-level post about this, it would benefit from having more people in the discussion.
Thanks for the encouragement! I wrote it up, should show under Recent Posts.